COMMENTERS: I don’t have much else to say. I’m just happy to be able to reflect on the events of last week and hope for better, less traumatic nightmare scenarios in the future. When the news is all bad, do you like to stay plugged in, learning as much as you can, or do you like to tune out and wait until the dust settles to find out what happened? Is there any particular story or national event that you remember following obsessively or trying to avoid completely?

Comments (22)

My reaction is a mixture. I like to get the initial “what happened” and the initial response as close to real-time as possible, with the understanding that detailed specifics on what happened are going to be mighty thin on the ground for quite a while and about 90% of those details in the first hours generally turn out to be total bullshit.When the 24-hour newsies start talking to people who knew the alleged perp or one of the victims in preschool 20 years ago and start trotting out the “analysts”, I switch over to something else for a while. I’ll get a top-of-hour or bottom-of-hour recap, which will usually cover anything new that may have popped up, then back to what I was doing.

The first time I really did this was 1995, the Murrah Building in OKC. The internet wasn’t nearly what it was then (I hadn’t yet switched over to a proper ‘net dialup account, still being on GEnie, which had the Lynx text-only browser and generally sucked), but I had an uncle who was in that building (he was okay aside from a coating of dust and about 7 minutes missing from his personal timeline. Postal workrooms in Federal buildings are hardened to keep booms in, which also helps keep booms out) and his brother, a now-retired FBI agent, was one of the first feds on the scene – and one of the guys who escorted McVeigh off the chopper at Tinker AFB after he was flown back from Perry, so there was a personal interest there. (As it turns out, one of my HS classmates was one of the 168 victims — she was in the SS office tending to some paperwork issue or other and had a good chunk of the building land on her.)

So yeah, I’m a news junkie up to the point where the bullshit starts getting thick. Then I stop.

I remember being completely fixated on every detail of the Fukushima power plant coverage after the earthquake, and praying that the next bit of news would feature Godzilla. It would have been awesome. And I would have won a bet.I also remember completely avoiding anything to do with the 2012 US Presidential elections. They started campaigning in February or March of that year, and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it for over eight months. My roommate’s birthday was the day after elections, and we threw a “Huzzah! No More Politics!” party. We took shots until Dick Cheney looked attractive.

I tend to be like an empath for negativity, if I were to get sucked into the news it would ruin my mood for the week. That being said, I couldn’t help but get sucked in when the news was happening live on Reddit and Twitter staying up much later than I should have.

As a non-american, Boston still dominated our news whereas similar (and deadlier) events within the same range of kilometers didn’t even make the frontpage of the news. The hypocrisy of it is infuriating and reeks of racism.Don’t get me wrong: it’s bad news, of course, but I would expect professional journalism to at least make an attempt to not totally ignore 36 dead in bombings on the same day in another country while Boston (again: this is foreign news for us) gets special editions on state tv. That’s why I tune out of main stream media more than usual.

I think the typical US attitude top to bottom is “Yeah but that kind of stuff happens in those countries ALL THE TIME.” The world needs to remember that the US is still a teenager in terms of being a nation and it acts very much that way. We are invincible until proven otherwise, myopic in our world view and look at nearly everyone else as second class citizens. Give us a couple of hundred more years. We’ll either be much wiser or gone.

Oh dsfkjg, you have no idea how much I agree with this. I also saw a report that called the Boston Bombing the “worst terrorist act since 9/11”. And I was like… *TABLEFLIP!* RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH! That headline is so unspeakably, incredibly, intensely, moronically, asininely WRONG!!
I wanted to “terrorize” whomever wrote it.

I wish most reporters felt that way. Unfortunately that would require that they have both integrity and just a shred of human decency. These days, they’re all just trying to be the one that catches the next big story. They sit at their desks praying for some huge calamity to drop while they’re on watch. I think most of them would look at events like last week and think “Yeah! This is MY TIME! I’m going to be on the air 24/7 until this is over and then I’ll be a star!”. Cue the instant graphics and ominous theme music that always seem to appear within 30 minutes of every big story.

I’m pretty out of touch when it comes to news. Since the switch to digital signal, I can no longer get the local or national news shows, it wasn’t the greatest, but I do actually miss it. Now my news is whatever I see on Yahoo.ca as I’m going to check my email. Seems to be a lot of entertainment news, blah!
Prefer to live in my bubble and avoid the negative stuff.

I’m going to completely date myself here, but I was in high school when the whole OJ Simpson thing happened. I remember my dad calling to me in my dungeon lair of a basement to come watch the action as a helicopter followed the white Bronco for hours. I kinda stood there watching for about 30 seconds and just asked him to tell me what happened when it was over.

I’ve always been a newspaper reader since my days in college and I used to watch a fair amount of CNN international news. But ever since 911 I pretty much avoid any TV news. There’s one news “paper” site I regularly go to for their free downloadable PDF newspaper, click on and read through some of their news feeds, and then rely on Yahoo and other sites when/if I want more news.

I probably watched more cable news this week than I have in 5 years (other than during elections), which is to say that I watched SOME cable news this week instead of NONE. EVER. NEVER EVER. I found myself listening to the 1 or 2 pieces of information the head-talkers possessed then muting the TV before they could repeat, rephrase, reiterate and rehash the same information continuously for the next 30 minutes until something else happened. I just want an informed person who is adept at communication to tell me what’s going on, then stop talking. Maybe cut to a slideshow of relevant images, maps, etc. when the facts run out. Don’t cut to “a guy” who “used to know a guy” to talk about “his feelings” or “some stuff” just because there is airtime to fill. “Well, that’s all the news we have for now. Joining us via satellite is some guy who was near the explosion. How did the explosion make you feel, guy?” / “Pretty exploded, Dan.” And the nation rests easy knowing how extremely informed it is.

It was odd that during this last week of unimaginable simultaneous national crises I got the most relevant, concise and up to date information from Twitter. I’m not saying this is how it SHOULD be. I’m just saying this is how is WAS this particular time. It’s a bit of a shock to realize that we are now able to read and often watch first hand accounts of major world events exactly as they are happening from the people they are happening too. CNN doesn’t have a camera in the house of a guy on the street where the terrorists are thought to be hiding, but that guy has a smartphone which makes him a defacto imbedded reporter.

I feel like we aren’t that far from a time when a major event happens and some sort of rudimentary AI starts to comb the web for first hand accounts, tweets, blog posts, YouTube videos, etc., then aggregates, edits and presents them to you as “Here’s what’s happening right now.” It would basically be an on demand, custom new broadcast created in real time based on the real information that was available. Sort of like the city wide cell phone imaging system from The Dark Knight but with Tweets and Vines (and maybe a few Yelp reviews). Of course the moment something like this existed would be the moment people started gaming the system. Tweeting false information to sway public opinion, etc. Wait… we already do that. Never mind.

COMMENTERS: How do you like to get your news? From a professional news-talker on the TV box or a “professional” news-newser from the Internet box? Or perhaps you get it from that fist guy’s grandpa who works at a newspaper that hasn’t closed yet for some reason. Or do you take to the social web and cull through the 1000’s of cat photos and food tweets to find the real first hand accounts?

Comments (37)

I usually read the BBC’s wobsite for news, or NPR if I need something more ‘Merica-specific. Cable news is what turned me off of laundromats. Is it not enough that I must do laundry, that I have to see Fox News on every TV as I do so?

I get most of my news between internet articles, Youtube, some from The Daily Show, and even a couple hours weekly of TV news. Having to comb all over just to get facts is kinda terrible… but that’s how it is these days. :-/And like you I’m amazed I was actually getting more info between Twitter and Reddit of all things than CNN, MSNBC, and network news combined. That’s kinda terrible…

In a time of crisis I will tune to one of the few anchors who I feel actual try to deliver quality news, even when I disagree with many of their political views as in the case of Rachel Maddow.Otherwise if something important is happening I hear about it on twitter.

While I like her, I COULDN’T STAND the rest of the talking heads on MSNBC during all of this. Some of them were even going borderline racist/bigot in an attempt to spin all of the events, and I had to switch back to CNN just to stay away from them, then walk away from the TV in disgust after seeing 30 minutes of people being told to stand away from everything.

I go through cycles of staying away from anything that might be considered news (including The Daily Show and The Colbert Report), and watching those and Rachel Maddow, Chis Hayes and Melissa Harris-Perry avidly {all online since I don’t have cable) and also checking out Google News headlines.Since I never watch breaking news coverage,my only source is Twitter. Last week I was inundated on Twitter with info about all the insane stuff happening and also how the networks were bullshitting for hours.

After last week, I’m definitely in a no news phase for awhile. So no shows, and also muting lots of stuff in my Twitter app.

For things like this I tend to just shut the news off, though usually I try to catch the Newshour a few times a week.Back in 2000 I learned about the repetitive news cycle when my hometown caught on fire and we were evacuated. They just showed the same three shots of houses burning all day, no sense of scale or actual information. My parents turned into grief zombies watching it, and while I’m sure my brother and I did as well we snapped out of it first and got them away from the TVs. After that we managed to turn it into a bit of a vacation, and just checked in the evenings to see if there was any news on when there would be news.

Believe it or not, our local news folks are actually pretty reliable. They’re always very careful about separating what we know from what we guess, and that from what someone’s opinion is; and since it’s the local news show, when they run out of information they’re not afraid to return to whatever else they were showing until something *new* happens.So I mostly used the local news, and some self-directed aggregation from the Net. I even called it as probably being a couple of white kids, when everybody was all about them thar dusky furriners from the Middle East. (In fact, they were from the Caucasus Mountains – they literally could not have been more Caucasian.)

I look at the headlines on Google news, but I’ve noticed a similar problem, which is that most of the news sources with an online presence are in such a hurry to be “first”, that they don’t bother to fact-chect before publishing, and often present unverified information as fact, resulting the dissemination of large amounts of information, most of which is inaccurate. It generally seems to take a few days to a week for facts to coalesce into anything coherent.

This last week I got my news via this method. First I found myself at Yahoo, my homepage; then I might see a new development in the Boston case. Then I went to the BBC to read their more concise and useful update.Honestly though I gave maybe 0.47 fucks about the whole situation because I already knew the ending would be one of three things. The find the suspect already dead, suspect is killed in shootout, suspect is captured alive and considered guilty before they’re even booked into the precinct.

I give it less than a year before we see this all adapted to 4 different crime dramas and a film of some kind.

I followed the chase this week via online streams of Boston PD’s scanners/radios. Very interesting to listen in on something like that as it’s happening, and to hear everything 15 or 20 minutes before it shows up on cable.I knew people listened in on police scanners with their CB radios or whatever, but had no idea they were streamed online, and could be accessed from anywhere in the world.

I know the news shows supposedly were on a delay, and what I found interesting was that CNN was holding back some information (probably thanks to John King running his mouth earlier in the week and the channel being chastised for it), while MSNBC was blabbing about anything they could get their hands on as soon as they heard it.

Reminds me of that 30 minute period before Obama officially said Bin Laden was dead. It was interesting news, but within 30 seconds I knew everything they knew and noticed the rapid descent into pointless dialogue.With Boston, NPR had the descency to give us real info with little pointless talking before going back to other very important stories.

I even got to help slam a media “giant” for doctoring gore out of a photo. It was fun blowing the “responsible journalsim/photo ethics” part of the Internet for about a day before the circus that was Thursday and Friday.

I just stick with the BBC news on my radio and over their website. You get the news – just the news – and uncoloured by opinion. Plus they don’t tend to report stuff unless they’ve actually fact checked it. Its kind of nice to be able to get an hourly news update on the radio too. I drive around a lot listening to BBC Raqdio 2 so I can generally enjoy just listening to some music, get a bulliten if anything important actually happens, and otherwise just catch the 5 minute news summary of the hour.The BBC – not just for Doctor Who and Sherlock!

Is anyone else reminded of Mac’s or Will’s rants on “The Newsroom”? ;)I don’t have TV and haven’t had any for a few years now (because I would have to pay for a crapload of sucky German TV I don’t want, just to get 2-3 shows I like). Being in Germany helps to steer clear of Fox and their ilk. I watch my entertainment shows online, occasionally listen to a local rock station (one of their jingles is “Spaghetti Monster save Berlin!” – I love these guys) on the way to work, most of which is underground, so at the most, that’s 20 minutes/day; and I don’t read newspapers. I get my Ahmurrican news from The Daily Show and my American Facebook friends. I *very* rarely use my Twitter account – I find it too hard to follow a conversation. If I feel the need for up-to-the-minute news, I check the BBC or CNN websites. Haven’t missed the Apocalypse so far, so I guess I’m fine.

I check the CNN website a couple of times of day just to see what is going on in the world. However for important stuff like last week I tend to check the BBC or NPR so I can get decent information with fewer ‘facts’ in it.

I get mine mostly from Twitter. I occasionally check the BBC news website, but as they have become the mouthpiece of our government rather than an independent broadcaster, I only do this to find stories that don’t have political implications/input or to see how the government are lying to us now.I know that sounds boringly and annoyingly paranoid, but the head of the BBC is a former Tory MP and many of the board members have financial interests in the private companies to whom our government is handing public contracts (publicly available information) so it’s all provable.

Until Twitter decided to blame that college student who looked like a ‘ferriner for the attack, yet was dead in a river for over a month.
At least Reddit apologized to the family for their part in that.

I’m from Boston and had family and friends affected by the shelter-in-place order (my office in Boston proper was closed, too), and I stayed on local news – WBZ on the TV – for coverage. My roommate and I actually had the TV playing on mute and followed the Boston Globe Live Blog for updates – information on that was tweeted and retweeted from the BPD, the FBI, and on-scene reporters. There was far less noise and useless chatter on that feed.But there is a flip side to social media reporting by witnesses and journalists: compromising the safety of law enforcement, witnesses, and perpetrators. The Internet streams of scanners was blocked on several occasions by the police when their positions were compromised by people tweeting info obtained from the scanners. The reporters were pushed far off of the perimeter of the search grid because they kept giving away position information. Immediate information is great, but not at the expense of lives. And unfortunately many people tweet, Facebook, or Instagram before they think.

I get mine almost entirely from web comics and Fandom Secrets, with the odd ten-minute snippets of CBC Radio thrown in as I’m driving to the grocery store.I used to have a subscription to a daily newspaper. Oddly, I find that I don’t seem to be less informed about things that matter to me than I was when I was reading the paper; there’s just a lot less filler about stuff I don’t care about, like sports.

Thanks to my web comics (Something*Positive in particular), I actually found out about Boston only a few hours after it happened, and had more details than my husband, who was at work at the time (ironically as a communications technician).

I am new to Twitter, so was surprised over the last week that I was getting more information (and more accurate information) from my Twitter feed than from Google News.I read about the earthquake in China, went on to Google News, and NONE of the headlines mentioned it. Not in Top Stories or World News. You’d think an earthquake that injures 11,000 people would be a little more important.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s because it focuses too much on Canada (since that’s where I am). Sorry, Google, I don’t care about some stupid Canadian politicial maneuvering when there are disasters happening elsewhere in the world.

I usually do BBC/Guardian/Twitter. I did check out reddit but quickly realised people were running around crying SHOPPED at not-shopped pictures (I’ve been working with digital imagery and Photoshop since version 2, so I think I know what that looks like) and gave up.Really I got annoyed and switched off about the start of day 2, it was the stupid newscycle, the churn, it actually started doing real damage with false allegations and nastiness…so I left my friends to do that and looked at the odd thing that popped up in my feed.

Really I lose interest really quick because in the 24 hour news as you say above it just repeats and they don’t actually inform you of anything, so it actually becomes far worse and actually far more dangerous than not knowing.